Wednesday, January 25, 2006

What Intellectual Property Rights Would Jesus Exercise?

I'm not even a good Christian, but I'm appalled at our McPope whoring out encyclicals like medieval indulgences. For the first time since Christ died for your sins, the Vatican is enforcing its copyright on all papal pronouncements, including papal bulls, homilies, sermons, and apparently if the pope comes up with a dirty joke about John the Baptist, that's copyrighted too. Benedict and company have even gone all RIAA on some Italian publisher's ass and sued them for €15,000 (about $18,000) plus €3500 in legal fees, because... I guess Jesus has some expensive lawyers.

I should present the other side of the argument, though: It's not like leading the flocks to God is a very lucrative profession. Benedict may live in a palace, surround himself with priceless artwork and artifacts, have a summer home in the mountains and personal throne-carriers, but someone's gotta pay for those Gucci loafers! And Jesus did, in fact, say to his apostles in (I believe) the Book of Sanctimony 15:3-5, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. And then take five percent for royalties." ...Oh, wait, I'm confused. That wasn't Jesus, that was L. Ron Hubbard. My bad.

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